Montego Bay

Montego Bay is a tourist destination with duty-free shopping, a cruise line terminal and several beaches. The city is backed by low mountains.

History

When Christopher Columbus for the first time visited the island in 1494, he named the bay Golfo de Buen Tiempo ("Fair Weather Gulf"). The name "Montego Bay" is believed to have originated as a corruption of the Spanish word manteca ("lard"), allegedly because during the Spanish period it was the port where lard, leather, and beef were exported. Jamaica was a colony of Spain from 1511 until 1655, when Oliver Cromwell's Caribbean expedition, the Western Design, drove the Spanish from the island.

During the epoch of slavery, from the mid-17th century until 1834, and well into the 20th century, the town functioned primarily as a sugarcane port. The island's last major slave revolt, the Christmas Rebellion or Baptist War (1831–1832) took place in the area around Montego Bay; the leader of the revolt, Samuel Sharpe, was hanged there in 1832. In 1975, Sharpe was proclaimed a national hero of Jamaica, and the main square of the town was renamed in his honor.

Montego Bay (song)

"Montego Bay" is a song by Bobby Bloom about the city in Jamaica. The song was a Top 10hit for Bloom in September 1970 on both sides of the Atlantic. It reached #3 on the UK Singles Chart, #5 on the Canadian RPM 100 Singles Chart, #7 on the Australian Go-Set Singles Chart and #8 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song was co-written and produced by Jeff Barry. In the master tape of the song, Bloom breaks into a verse of "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" at the end of the recording, but the single version fades out before that. Apparently, that was done to avoid paying royalties for use of the Rodgers & Hammerstein song (although the full version does appear on the Bobby Bloom Album and has received frequent airplay). The song features a whistler, as well as Jamaican instruments to illustrate the section called "Montego Bay", in a Calypso genre.

New Zealander Jon Stevens' cover version of the song hit #1 in his native country on January 18, 1980.

Covers

Deep Inside

"Deep Inside" is a song by American R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige. It was third single released in the United Kingdom from her fifth album, Mary, and the second single from the album in the United States.

Like the preceding single, "All That I Can Say", it was a moderate success in the United States peaking at number fifty-one on the Billboard Hot 100, seven places lower than the previous single. In the United Kingdom, however, it was one of her least successful singles to date and Blige's first single to miss the UK top 40 since the first release of "Real Love" seven years earlier.

The song features Elton John, who plays elements of his song "Bennie and the Jets" on the piano, which "Deep Inside" samples. He does not provide additional vocals. The video for the single features Blige and her dancers performing to "Sincerity", which appears on the deluxe edition of the Mary album in the United States and the United Kingdom single of "Deep Inside."